Vice President Joe Biden, in a speech on Feb. 7 to the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy, reaffirmed the commitment of the United States government to the peaceful support of democratic values worldwide. Mr. Biden delivered the speech as part of his first overseas excursion since assuming the vice presidency on Jan. 20 .

During his remarks, Biden said:

“To meet the challenges of this new century, defense and diplomacy are necessary. But quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, they are not sufficient. We also need to wield development and democracy, two of the most powerful weapons in our collective arsenals. Poor societies and dysfunctional states, as you know as well as I do, can become breeding grounds for extremism, conflict and disease. Non-democratic nations frustrate the rightful aspirations of their citizens and fuel resentment.

“Our administration has set an ambitious goal to increase foreign assistance, to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015, to help eliminate the global educational deficit, and to cancel the debt of the world's poorest countries; to launch a new Green Revolution that produces sustainable supplies of food, and to advance democracy not through the imposition of force from the outside, but by working with moderates in government and civil society to build those institutions that will protect that freedom -– quite frankly, the only thing that will guarantee that freedom.”

• Read the full speech | Visit the White House website »

• Watch the speech | C-Span Video »

Pictured above: Vice President Joe Biden, photographed in Denver, Colo. in August 2008.
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Published on Jan. 30, 2009